Glider escapes plane fireball, 3 dead

AP

PLANE'S COLLIDE: The crew of a glider under tow escaped unhurt after two planes collided in mid-air, killing three people.

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US investigators will talk to other pilots to determine if they heard any communications between two small planes just before they collided in Colorado, killing all three people on board.

A glider under tow by one of the aircraft cut loose and flew to safety.

With no black box data, investigators are relying heavily on video, photos and witnesses' testimony to determine what led to the fiery crash Saturday, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jennifer Rodi said.

The crash occurred about 1.30pm on Saturday near the Boulder Municipal Airport when a southbound Cirrus SR20 collided with a westbound Piper Pawnee that was towing the glider, causing the "immediate disintegration and explosion of both airplanes," Rodi said.

Young Kim said he and his girlfriend were walking out of her condo on Saturday when they heard a loud boom.

"We looked up in the sky. We saw a glider and right next to it what looked like a big black ball of fire," he said. "It looked at first like fireworks coming out of it."

His girlfriend, Barb Maiberger, said, "You're going, 'This can't be real.' But it was real, and I knew something was wrong."

Kim started running about a half-mile to the scene. "You could see a big smokestack coming out from the wreckage, and dozens of people running toward the scene hoping to rescue someone. As you got closer, you could actually smell the fumes from the jet fuel," Kim said.

"I was just hoping maybe somebody survived," he said.

Several witnesses have said they saw people plunging from the planes, but Rodi said it's hard to tell whether they saw people or airplane parts falling.

An amateur video shot at the scene showed a plane on fire, floating to the ground trailing thick, black smoke and a parachute. Sheriff's officials said the parachute was designed to deploy if a plane was disabled and was attached to the plane's wreckage, not a person.

The crash spread debris over a 1 1/2 mile region of prairie. No one on the ground was hurt.

Three people were aboard the glider that managed to disconnect from the Piper Pawnee as the Cirrus clipped the tow line, just before the two planes collided, Boulder County sheriff's officials said.

The pilot of the glider was Ruben Bakker, his mother-in-law Deborah Tjarks said. She said he saw the collision about to happen and released the glider and banked but still flew through the flames. Bakker did not return a call for comment.

The single-engine Cirrus left the Boulder airport with two people on board around 12.45pm on Saturday and was lost on radar for about 10 minutes, Rodi said.

Sheriff's officials said the Piper Pawnee, with only a pilot aboard, belonged to Mile High Gliding Inc and had just taken off from the Boulder airport before the crash with the glider in tow.

The Cirrus had the capability to provide data from avionics, like a black box, but the avionics were destroyed in the crash and fire, Rodi said.

Investigators working as light snow fell on Sunday planned to recover parts of the plane until dark, then start again Monday morning.

They will examine maintenance records, the pilots' flight records and look at paint transfers on the plane parts to help determine what speeds the planes were traveling.

Rodi wouldn't speculate on whether air congestion is a problem in the area.

In the airspace the planes were using, the pilots didn't have to communicate with air traffic control towers but could have communicated with each other.

Rodi said investigators would talk with other pilots who might have heard the pilots of the two planes talking with each other. It wasn't immediately known how many other pilots were in the area at the time.

The News Tribune in Duluth, the region where the Cirrus is manufactured, quoted Joan Pallone, of Broomfield, Colorado, as saying her brother-in-law, Bob Matthews, and his brother, Mark Matthews, were on the Cirrus. She said they're from the Boulder area.

- AP